Things that piss you off that shouldn't

[mjmooney]

3 hours ago, Rds1983 said:

Can we change the subject and start arguing about how useless Procurement /Sourcing / Buying departments are? Products are always late/wrong/to expensive etc. 

Dunno if it applies to all organisations, but when I worked at a university, procurement decisions always seemed to be driven by the current year's budget, with little or no consideration for long-term economy. The (apparently) trivial example that I always quote is for whiteboards. The market leader was (probably still is) NOBO. But despite acknowledging the product quality, Purchasing deemed them too expensive, and opted for a cheaper brand. The result? The cheap ones lost their 'wipeability' very quickly, and had to be replaced, pretty much every year. And they kept on doing it - always within their annual budget.

We actually have a NOBO whiteboard in our kitchen, that we use for shopping lists. I bought it in 1985, and write/wipe on it every day. It's still good as new today. Now scale that up to all the lecture theatres in a university and consider the actual cost. 

[Stevo985]

57 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Dunno if it applies to all organisations, but when I worked at a university, procurement decisions always seemed to be driven by the current year's budget, with little or no consideration for long-term economy. The (apparently) trivial example that I always quote is for whiteboards. The market leader was (probably still is) NOBO. But despite acknowledging the product quality, Purchasing deemed them too expensive, and opted for a cheaper brand. The result? The cheap ones lost their 'wipeability' very quickly, and had to be replaced, pretty much every year. And they kept on doing it - always within their annual budget.

We actually have a NOBO whiteboard in our kitchen, that we use for shopping lists. I bought it in 1985, and write/wipe on it every day. It's still good as new today. Now scale that up to all the lecture theatres in a university and consider the actual cost. 

I think that happens everywhere. Short termism is awful at our place. it's getting better, but everything is about hitting this quarter's numbers.

I've literally been in meetings where a commodity manager has told our director (at the time) that they could get a payment from a supplier but it would lose us their business and they'd put their prices up on whatever we do buy from them in future. So long term we'll be far worse off.

The answer was just to do it. They didn't care about long term. They needed the money now.

Drives everyone crazy

[bickster]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Dunno if it applies to all organisations, but when I worked at a university, procurement decisions always seemed to be driven by the current year's budget, with little or no consideration for long-term economy. The (apparently) trivial example that I always quote is for whiteboards. The market leader was (probably still is) NOBO. But despite acknowledging the product quality, Purchasing deemed them too expensive, and opted for a cheaper brand. The result? The cheap ones lost their 'wipeability' very quickly, and had to be replaced, pretty much every year. And they kept on doing it - always within their annual budget.

We actually have a NOBO whiteboard in our kitchen, that we use for shopping lists. I bought it in 1985, and write/wipe on it every day. It's still good as new today. Now scale that up to all the lecture theatres in a university and consider the actual cost. 

See: Competitive Tendering for Council work. It's a feckin wasteful disease

Talking of which, its that time of year where even though they deny it, the councils are trying to spend what remains of their roads budget by us. Round the corner we have temporary traffic lights whilst some contractors replace some paving slabs

They waited until the schools had gone back to do this, yep there's been a period of an entire year where there's been much lighter traffic but just wait until the worst time to do it because they've got to spend their budget.

There was nothing wrong with the paving slabs in the first place!

[chrisp65]

Yep, there’s a school at the end of my street and after being closed for the best part of a year, the school has reopened, then traffic lights have gone up and the roadworks have started.

There are four roads to that school, there are traffic lights and roadworks on three of those routes.

Meanwhile, I know of a UK govt department based around here where everyone is getting a new laptop whether they want one or not as the budget was ‘use it or lose it’. As in if you don’t prove you need £100k this year not only can’t you carry it over, the budget will be reduced next year. From that perspective, buying 35 unneeded laptops suddenly looks inspired.

And they ain’t £399 laptops either.

 

 

 

 

 

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Yep, there’s a school at the end of my street and after being closed for the best part of a year, the school has reopened, then traffic lights have gone up and the roadworks have started.

There are four roads to that school, there are traffic lights and roadworks on three of those routes.

Meanwhile, I know of a UK govt department based around here where everyone is getting a new laptop whether they want one or not as the budget was ‘use it or lose it’. As in if you don’t prove you need £100k this year not only can’t you carry it over, the budget will be reduced next year. From that perspective, buying 35 unneeded laptops suddenly looks inspired.

And they ain’t £399 laptops either.

Even worse than that, it keeps those bastards in procurement in a job 

[stuart_75]

12 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Meanwhile, I know of a UK govt department based around here where everyone is getting a new laptop whether they want one or not as the budget was ‘use it or lose it’. As in if you don’t prove you need £100k this year not only can’t you carry it over, the budget will be reduced next year. From that perspective, buying 35 unneeded laptops suddenly looks inspired.

This is standard practice in my sector (Telecoms). I've seen several hundred grand wasted rather than hand it back to the shareholders at the end of the year. Lunacy at its finest.

[Genie]

27 minutes ago, stuart_75 said:

This is standard practice in my sector (Telecoms). I've seen several hundred grand wasted rather than hand it back to the shareholders at the end of the year. Lunacy at its finest.

One of the few episodes of the US office I’ve seen is about this.

The boss (American version of David Brent) is told by accounts that if he doesn’t use all the remaining budget then he’ll lose it, and next years budget is also cut by that amount. They go through a series of silly things to spend/waste the money on quickly. 
Then when another branch manager asks him why he isn’t handing it back and having the 20% of it as a manager bonus he tries to cancel the wasting of the money as he wasn’t aware he could do that.

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Genie

[stuart_75]

29 minutes ago, stuart_75 said:

This is standard practice in my sector (Telecoms). I've seen several hundred grand wasted rather than hand it back to the shareholders at the end of the year. Lunacy at its finest.

 

 

1 minute ago, Genie said:

One of the few episodes of the US office I’ve seen is about this.

The boss (American version of David Brent) is told by accounts that if he doesn’t use all the remaining budget then he’ll lose it, and next years budget is also cut by that amount. They go through a series of silly things to spend/waste the money on quickly. 
Then when another branch manager asks him why he isn’t handing it back and having the 20% of it as a manager bonus he tries to cancel the wasting of the money as he wasn’t aware he could do that.

 

Not only is next year's budget cut, but questions are asked on why the original budget forecast was so off target. Over spending is the same heinous crime as under spending in my world.

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Talking of which, its that time of year where even though they deny it, the councils are trying to spend what remains of their roads budget by us. Round the corner we have temporary traffic lights whilst some contractors replace some paving slabs

Duh. Of course. I'd forgotten we had financial year end coming up. That explains the absolute mayhem of pointless roadworks around here. It's also the indirect cause of the speeding ticket I mentioned upthread. I was on a bit of temptingly fast dual carriageway that I know well to be a 40 zone, so I was cruising at 35. Except there was a short stretch of coned off lane for roadworks (nothing actually being done) that they'd made a 30 and I missed it. Grrr. 

[villa4europe]

Normal for pretty much any local authority I've ever worked with

Its surprising how many are willing to overpay a contractor at the end of the financial year just so that their budgets aren't cut, my record is £1.2m overpaid on a £4m project

[lapal_fan]

Somethings that annoy me lately;

1. Sleeping/tiredness/fatigue - what an absolute waste of time that shit is.  I've got 79 years on this stupid, piece of shit space rock, and I'll spend 1/3 of that time with my eyes closed.  Absolutely pointless - well done evolution, you word removed.

2. Pissing and or shitting - why?  Just be more efficient you stupid, fat body of mine - use what I give you and stop pissing away "bad stuff" - just keep it and deal with it.  Again, **** YOU evolution, you absolute ball of ass.

3. I.T staff - **** hell, what a bunch of moany asstards that lot are.  Say one thing about them and you get those whole, spotty posse on you telling you how great and required they are.  Again, **** YOU EVOLUTION.

4. Cooking - food is great.. the cooking of it though?  Jesus what a waste of time.  If GOD is out there, **** YOU for not directly making pizza from tree's or whatever - again, **** I.T STAFF.  They can take that one. 

4. Driving - it's shit and a waste of time - come on I.T Staff, give us instant transportation, instead of focusing on unjamming paper from printers you donkey dicks.

5.  WHY DOES MY VENUS FLY TRAP KEEP DYING?! Like seriously.. I feed you actual live flies (I catch them and shove them into the mouth(?) of the fly traps, they close and I'm like, "**** YEA!" and 5 days later they go black and die.. what sort of carnivorous house plant are you?  **** YOU I.T STA... Oh sorry, I mean EVOLUTION - again. 

6. My upstairs toilet - I poop, wipe, lid down, flush, go make sandwiches for everyone and then wash my hands (that's a little joke about hygiene there) - so yesterday, I poop, wipe, lid down, flush, done.  3 Hours later, my 6 year old yells from upstairs "MOM! SOMETHING INTERESTING HAS HAPPENED!!!" - I ignore it. Wife goes upstairs, 30 seconds later "LAP, COME UPSTAIRS PLEASE?" - I'm like "hmmm, must be interesting.." - I go upstairs, they're stood in the bathroom, mom says "I think you have something to fix".  6 year old goes "DAD! YOU'VE BLOCKED THE LOO WITH POO!!!" (lots of confused facial emotions).. I look down the toilet and apparently (and I have no idea how I didn't notice.. which gives you some indication of problems probably to come) I'd done a shit so, so, so wide, it half blocked the toilet.  You could flush and flush and flush (8 times!), but it sat there, like a brown, angry crocodile.  I dunno what you're meant to do with a stubborn poo, and I needed a piss (please ignore point 2.1 of this post for now) and absolutely prolapsed my anus to blast deep enough into the pan water, to try and do something to this "thing".  After shovelling my intestines back into my reversed asshole, I tried flushing again, more in hope than expectation..

Hallelujah! - it **** off on the 9th flush.

So again - **** YOU IT STAFF. 

Happy Friday. 

[sharkyvilla]

It was a sunny afternoon so I organise to meet my mate in the park for a beer at 2.30 so I go down there, then just after 2.30 I get a text saying 'Just leaving Tesco now'.  Great so I'm waiting here and you just have to drive home, put all your shopping away then walk 20 minutes to get here.  And there is no way you could possibly have known how long you would be and just let me know to aim for 3 o'clock.  Late people boil my piss.

[sidcow]

5 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Somethings that annoy me lately;

1. Sleeping/tiredness/fatigue - what an absolute waste of time that shit is.  I've got 79 years on this stupid, piece of shit space rock, and I'll spend 1/3 of that time with my eyes closed.  Absolutely pointless - well done evolution, you word removed.

2. Pissing and or shitting - why?  Just be more efficient you stupid, fat body of mine - use what I give you and stop pissing away "bad stuff" - just keep it and deal with it.  Again, **** YOU evolution, you absolute ball of ass.

3. I.T staff - **** hell, what a bunch of moany asstards that lot are.  Say one thing about them and you get those whole, spotty posse on you telling you how great and required they are.  Again, **** YOU EVOLUTION.

4. Cooking - food is great.. the cooking of it though?  Jesus what a waste of time.  If GOD is out there, **** YOU for not directly making pizza from tree's or whatever - again, **** I.T STAFF.  They can take that one. 

4. Driving - it's shit and a waste of time - come on I.T Staff, give us instant transportation, instead of focusing on unjamming paper from printers you donkey dicks.

5.  WHY DOES MY VENUS FLY TRAP KEEP DYING?! Like seriously.. I feed you actual live flies (I catch them and shove them into the mouth(?) of the fly traps, they close and I'm like, "**** YEA!" and 5 days later they go black and die.. what sort of carnivorous house plant are you?  **** YOU I.T STA... Oh sorry, I mean EVOLUTION - again. 

6. My upstairs toilet - I poop, wipe, lid down, flush, go make sandwiches for everyone and then wash my hands (that's a little joke about hygiene there) - so yesterday, I poop, wipe, lid down, flush, done.  3 Hours later, my 6 year old yells from upstairs "MOM! SOMETHING INTERESTING HAS HAPPENED!!!" - I ignore it. Wife goes upstairs, 30 seconds later "LAP, COME UPSTAIRS PLEASE?" - I'm like "hmmm, must be interesting.." - I go upstairs, they're stood in the bathroom, mom says "I think you have something to fix".  6 year old goes "DAD! YOU'VE BLOCKED THE LOO WITH POO!!!" (lots of confused facial emotions).. I look down the toilet and apparently (and I have no idea how I didn't notice.. which gives you some indication of problems probably to come) I'd done a shit so, so, so wide, it half blocked the toilet.  You could flush and flush and flush (8 times!), but it sat there, like a brown, angry crocodile.  I dunno what you're meant to do with a stubborn poo, and I needed a piss (please ignore point 2.1 of this post for now) and absolutely prolapsed my anus to blast deep enough into the pan water, to try and do something to this "thing".  After shovelling my intestines back into my reversed asshole, I tried flushing again, more in hope than expectation..

Hallelujah! - it **** off on the 9th flush.

So again - **** YOU IT STAFF. 

Happy Friday. 

 

[maqroll]

Commuters who use GoPro cameras and seek out confrontations on roadways so they can get views on their YouTube channels. 

[Davkaus]

38 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Commuters who use GoPro cameras and seek out confrontations on roadways so they can get views on their YouTube channels. 

I've watched a few dashcam videos, **** knows why, and it's the same. Bellends who quite often would have a point about someone else being a dickhead, but who completely lose the high ground by manufacturing scenarios to make things worse.

Approaching a roundabout? Why not speed up so you can blast your horn at another driver not expecting to have to give way to someone approaching a blind roundbaout like it's a **** drag race.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Davkaus

[Xela]

Bad driving Youtube videos are a guilty pleasure of mine. Especially if the bad drivers crash off the road or they try and brake check a lorry and get smashed from behind (kw.jpg)

 

[Xela]

People in pyjamas in supermarkets. **** off. 

[theboyangel]

Just now, Xela said:

People in pyjamas in supermarkets. **** off. 

Cmon, they’ve probably just dropped the kids to school- they’re busy folk

[villa4europe]

Want to get my little girl an England shirt for her birthday ready for the euros

They haven't got grealish or Watkins or mings

They have gor Danny Rose, maddison, Wilson whoever that is, Joe gomez, dele and barkley

I'm surprised to see that they have a deal with fanatics... 

[maqroll]

Pissed at myself for not buying a Luke Villa shirt when I had the chance.